My sister tells me her doctor advised her to give up Wheat and Wheat products. It has been 3 weeks and where she sometimes could not make a fist because of Arthritis she now can. She says she feels much better, has lost 9 pounds and swears by the no wheat diet. She referred to Wheat as FrankenWheat, Wheat products that have been genetically engineered with addictive qualities. First I have heard of it. Anybody know more about FrankenWheat??
Your sister has bought into the woo.
Bolding mine. Basically, the American dieting public does not have much common sense and has named gluten the new evil food component. Its a fad. The diet she is on has probably forced her to look more closely at what she eats and how much of it she consumes which is good for anybody.
Also, not to emphasize it too much but:
you don’t need to eat wheat to get fiber.
Obviously, but you have to get it somewhere and many people who cut out wheat from their diets also cut out the foods that contain fiber, and that is according to the experts
I have an issue when the experts make pronouncements or recommendations based on the actions of people who R DOIN IT RONG. I don’t eat much wheat products (I don’t go out of my way to avoid it, but I rarely buy any myself) but I still eat plenty of vegetables.
They have to because the majority of dieters are stupid. Plain and simple. They R DOIN IT RONG. That is what makes it a fad and not a healthy lifestyle choice.
The placebo effect can occur where one feels better for taking X ; even though X is irrelevant or detrimental.
The placebo effect can also occur where one feels better for NOT taking Y ; even though Y is irrelevant or beneficial.
People have been eating a genetically modified form of wheat for a long time now.
It’s called “wheat”.
You have never in your life eaten wheat that was not the produced of thousands of years of man-guided genetic modification.
It’s a fad I’m grateful for, as it’s meant lots and lots of companies capitalizing on the craze and offering gluten free options that just didn’t exist even 5 years ago. Even Domino’s has a gluten free crust now - although they clearly and correctly point out that since it’s cooked in the same kitchen as their regular crusts, it’s not certified gluten free from cross contamination. That’s okay by my daughter’s body; small amounts don’t bother her, but a whole slice of wheat pizza crust and she’s coughing almost before the meal is over, and a bellyache will likely follow.
But yes, one mustn’t overreact. If it makes a person feel better to go gluten free, then great. But it’s not an indication that wheat is poison to the rest of us.
There’s more fiber in my daughter’s gluten free multigrain bread than in white bread. I’m not sure that expert really is speaking from experience with gluten free fadders and the “merely” gluten intolerant, or rather conjecture. He’s an expert on Celiac Disease, in which people have to be really, really careful about not getting a speck of gluten greater than 20 parts per million, and they’re more likely that the rest of us to have other digestive or endocrine issues like diabetes and colon cancer and IBS. Those people don’t eat gluten free pizza from Domino’s. I suspect they restrict their diets far more than people eating gluten free because it’s trendy, but even so, with education they can certainly get more than enough fiber in their diets.
Then again, I’ve seen more than a few vegetarians who subsist on nothing but mac and cheese and french fries, so yeah, there are people out there who can manage to turn any “healthy” diet into idiocy.
Wheat can have a negative effect on people with arthritis:
From here (a peer reviewed journal): Diet therapy for patients with RA.
However, if you read the article (which links to numerous studies), a ton of other things are also linked to arthritis and RA flare ups. Perhaps wheat was one of her triggers, so she got lucky in that her doctor’s recommendation worked. It could also be the placebo effect.
My mom has RA and notices a reduction in symptoms when she drinks less or weaker coffee. Caffeine is also linked to RA flare ups.
And of course we all now know that expensive placebos work better than cheap ones.
I met a guy the other week who was talking about how his friend made him something out of wheat once in the past and he said “That was before I was allergic to gluten. I mean, before I found out.”
I found it highly hilarious.
I’m not sure what you’re saying. A gluten/wheat free diet is only as expensive as you want to make it. All it is is cutting *out *gluten/wheat. No one says you have to buy the gluten free bread or gluten free pizza (which do indeed cost a couple of dollars more than the wheat counterparts, 'cause tapioca and quinoa and other starches used aren’t subsidized like wheat are.) Don’t want to spend extra money? Don’t buy bread. Have your sandwich on a tortilla, or between two slices of eggplant, or have it as a chef’s salad instead. Have rice or potatoes if you crave white starch, instead of noodles. These specialty products are nice because people like bread, and it’s nice to have the option of gluten free bread. But you’re not going to be deficient in anything if you’re eating vegetables and fruits and nuts and meat and dairy - all of which are perfectly gluten free by nature.
Not really genetically engineered but certainly genetically modified. Roughly 95% of all of the wheat consumed in the world today is from the dwarf species Triticum aestivum which was developed using physical (X-rays, gamma rays) and chemical mutagenic techniques.
How about this? Placebos are more effective when they are in the right range of difficult. Too hard (and expensive is a type of hard), and no one sticks to them. Too easy and you don’t feel like you’ve earned your positive outcome.
I really feel that a lot of fad dieting is based on the fact that people think health/weight are reflections of character. A good person will naturally be drawn to healthy foods, won’t have a sweet tooth, will love good healthful exercise. A bad person has a taste for cheetos and miracle whip. There’s a lot of class stuff mixed in there, too–social classes in America have their own kosher laws: just try showing up at one sort of party with a bag of Doritos, or at another with a humus-and-pita tray.
Anyway, because we don’t see health as science, but rather as a reflection of our deep moral self, when we reform it, we have to pay penance: we have to atone. So very restrictive (but not TOO restrictive) diets are always going to be attractive, and make people feel like they are making progress. This is also why “detox” type diets will stay popular: people love a three day fast-and-purge to atone for their sin of liking Little Debbies. I really think people–especially women–feel like having an appetite, enjoying food, is a SIN, and that the only way to pay off the diet gods is with an amount of suffering that cancels out the pleasure they had.
Just yesterday I met a woman with true celiac disease, and she said she was perfectly fine with the fad, because so many producers and food-store sections (eg Whole Foods) are coming out.
Abso-frikken-lutely. You nailed it (for a certain subset of people, of course.) So, sure, I’ll accept “expensive” in terms of time and thought put into it when you begin the process of making dietary changes. (It’s easy as…uh…sin…when you’ve had a little practice, though. 
)
One of my favorite alt medicine teachers described such a mindset as arising from a subconscious “American Protestant Ethic” wherein the body is bad and dirty and sinful, and if one does right, eats right, thinks right thoughts, takes the right herbs, says the right mantras, all will be right and you’ll never get sick. If you do get sick, it’s evidence that you were BAD, indulgent or sinful in some way. Utter nonsense, she says, and a horrible, victim blaming mindset to burden ill people with.
LeoBloom, yes, exactly my thought. I’m cool with a fad that makes it super easy to get my kid the food she likes. Just got an email from Udi’s, one of her favorite gluten-free bakers, that Walmart just started stocking their stuff. Hail and hallelujah! It’s going to be a snap to find her gluten free bread on our road trips this summer! 
Right on! In fact, the only food we generally consume that has not been genetically modified is fish and not all fish either. But the genetic modifications were essentially random and never tested for safety, instead of directed and then tested. Time for a tinfoil hat.
I dunno about the Placebo effect and Gluten. You cut raw sugar out of your diet and do not replace with something equally as bad you will lose weight, same with white flour. I imagine some folks have sensitivities to all kinds of foods/chemicals but they have lived with how they feel for so long that the deep negative reactions to certain types of food/chemicals have been so gradual they think how they feel is how they are supposed to feel.
I know several compulsive overeaters who are drawn to white flour and sugar like a crackhead tracks down crack. No placebo effect there.